If you spot itchy coke bros waxing extra douchy in the club this weekend or your stoner pal suddenly starts complaining about the $50 you owe him, here's why: South Florida's drug supply a hit last week. The federal government busted a shipment coming in off the coast of the Lake Worth Inlet.
And although smugglers speedboating drugs into South Florida is about as sure a bet as a Marlins blowout, this bust points to a new (or, really, reignited) trend we've written about before: the cartels' use of the Bahamian pipeline.
On July 8, a U.S. Customs Border Protection aircraft spotted two vessels powwowing on open water ten miles east of West Palm Beach. After exchanging "a couple of large bundles," the two crafts went in opposite directions -- one toward the mainland, the other for the Bahamas.
Authorities stopped and boarded both boats. On the U.S.-bound vessel, the found 127 kilogram-sized bricks of cocaine and three pounds of marijuana. Two men -- Joshua Ham and Irving Anderson -- were arrested. The other contained two Bahamian nationals, Edward Duncombe and Maxwell Tate.
These guys didn't exactly cling to an oath of silence. During questioning, all but Duncombe sketeched out the plan: The two Bahamians left Freeport with the drugs. After the handoff, the two Americans were to take the drugs to the Longhorn steak house in Davie; there, they had to hand off the product to Everette Williams.
The middlemen were set to get $1,500 for each kilogram of cocaine they dropped off to Williams. He was later arrested after police set up a fake handoff at the restaurant.
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